The lack of western sources in North Korea has allowed the media to conjure up fantastic stories that enthrall readers but aren’t grounded in hard fact. No attempt is made to see both sides of the Korean conflict: it is much easier and more palatable to a western audience to pigeonhole the DPRK as a dangerous maverick state ruled by a capricious dictator and South Korea as its long-suffering, patient neighbour.

Whatever your view on the actions of North and South Korea’s governments, the hypocrisy of using one-sided journalism to label North Korea a rogue, propaganda-led state is surely self-evident and fans the fire of intolerance and animosity.

I was initially tempted to post a detailed line-by-line rebuttal here in order to eviscerate the utter nonsense that this man has produced until it occurred to me, and several like-minded individuals I encountered in online comments discussing it, that the article was likely a hoax, quite possibly in the manner of the notable Sokal affair of 1996.